Ask any gamer the question of which console to lean towards and the obvious answer would be the Playstation 4. No matter how gorgeous the Xbox One may be, the $400 price tag of Playstation 4 is the killer factor that has made it one of the highest selling console ever.
Affected from low sales compared to the previous Xbox 360 due to the high $500 price tag which includes Kinect, Microsoft has finally (after a long time) felt the effect.
A new Xbox One which would carry a price tag of only $399 is coming in June 9. The only difference between this bundle and the $500 one is that the new version would not include the Kinect peripheral.
Additionally, the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One will no longer require a live Gold subscription which was meant for accessing streaming apps like Netflix, Youtube, Hbo and Hulu Plus and also would not be needed for premium services on the Xbox One such as Internet Explorer and Skype.
This doesn’t indicate that the Live Gold Subscription would be void as there are still some services for existing users such as the Games with Gold program, Game DVR and cloud game saves. Come this June, the Live Gold members for the Xbox 360 will also receive a free-game to mark the anniversary of Games with Gold.
[divider]Is this a good move for Microsoft? [/divider]
For any company, the number of sales is the most important factor for driving up profits. Through this new business model of lowering the price, Microsoft may have just earned a new group of customers who might be looking forward to buy the console over Playstation 4.
Unless and until there are good number of games and features specially made for Kinect, it won’t matter if one doesn’t own it.
[divider]Initial Wrong Move [/divider]
Microsoft’s initial attitude was disastrous. They presumed it would be possible to charge $560 for a new console and then later fall short of their expectations. Although the whole concept of the Xbox One was the ‘futuristic console’, it wasn’t executed in the right manner. If Microsoft could have initiated this new strategy at the time of launch, there would no doubt be a great fight between the Playstation 4. As the saying goes, first impression is the last impression. Microsoft will try their best to gain the popularity that it had in the Xbox 360 era.
[divider]Head to head with PS4 [/divider]
The cheaper version will now allow Microsoft to match the $399 PS4 along with removing the $60 yearly fee which had raised the total cost of ownership.
Good move by Microsoft!
